My First Noel: A Christmas Novella Set in The De Montforte World (The De Montfortes)

by Danelle Harmon

  You are a shrew…a shrew…a shrew.

  Katharine Farnsley paused, the candle wavering in her hand.

  She couldn’t just leave him out there. If he was a drunken beggar, he was likely to die from the cold. She might be a shrew, but she was no murderess. She might be cold-hearted, but she had a conscience. She might lack a heart, but she didn’t lack a brain, and her brain told her that if a dead, frozen body was discovered on the steps outside come morning, the resultant scandal would make the misfortune of “Lady K—” pale by comparison.

  But it was more than that and Katharine knew it.

  If she walked away, that pale, suffering face out there in the snowy darkness would haunt her all the days of her life.

  Don’t be a shrew. Just this once. After all, it’s Christmas.

  She turned and headed back to the door, her steps resolute. It loomed larger and larger, shadowy in the flickering light of a wall sconce, the candle in her hand. She grasped the cold iron handle, yanked the door open and looked down, words of grudging apology ready to roll off her tongue.

  The man was gone. In the snowy film that covered the steps where he’d lain, she saw dark splotches that looked shockingly like blood, saw the trail left by his body as he’d dragged himself off the steps. He had not got far. There, twenty feet off in the darkness beyond the meager light cast by her candle, he lay motionless in the snow, a sad, crumpled form of defeat.

  Lady Katharine Farnsley, Shrew, put down the candle and hurried down the steps. The icy wet slosh penetrated her slippers and sleet stung her cheeks as she moved quickly toward the fallen form. She knelt down, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  “Sir. Sir! Forgive me. It’s Christmas. Please…come inside where it’s warm.”

  Bitter wind roared from out of the darkness, twisting her skirts around her legs and setting her teeth to chattering. She shook the man’s shoulder until he groaned and stirred, finally showing signs of life.

  “Come inside!” she repeated, growing desperate.

  He groaned again, managed to get a hand beneath himself, and pushed himself to his knees. He remained there for a long moment, his head hanging, and then looked up to meet her gaze.

  Katharine almost stepped back. There was such a depth of feeling in those dark eyes, such pain and gratitude and quiet suffering, that even in the darkness it penetrated her very soul.

  He drew a leg beneath him and reached up, imploring her help. “’Tis weak as a kitten I am,” he murmured, stretching raw, cold-reddened fingers toward her. “A hand, if you will.”

  Swallowing her distaste at touching this creature who was not only covered in mud and thoroughly disreputable—but Irish—Katharine reached down to take his hand.

  His fingers fastened around hers. They were wet, frozen, and rough. Strong. She did not have the strength to pull him up, only to anchor him, and she shivered uncontrollably as he drew himself to his feet, growing taller and taller until his body all but towered over hers. He leaned heavily against her, cold and wet and smelling like leather, horse and wet wool, and wondering just what it was she’d done, just what it was she was doing, Katharine moved back to the steps.

  “I ought to leave you out here, you sorry wretch,” she muttered as his muddy coat pressed against her shawl, ruining it. “You are most fortunate that it’s Christmas and I’m feeling charitable.”

  “Do all of you nobs hereabouts,” he murmured, sagging against her as she struggled to get him up the last step and through the door, “need the excuse of Christmas in order to practice charity? What about the rest of the year?”

  “What other…nobs could you possibly be talking about?” she snapped, her tongue hesitating over the unflattering word as she kicked the door shut behind them with a foot that was wet and frozen in the ruined slipper.

  “The one who put me in this position…spooked m’ horse who reared up and fell over backwards on me…think I’ve broken a rib. Said he’s coming back for me, he did, with the magistrate. Figured I’d take my chances with the light in the darkness rather than the noose, y’see?”

  “Light in the darkness?”

  “Aye, madam, the light in the darkness…your house.”

  “And…what were you doing out on a night like this that made this nob go off to find the magistrate?”

  “’Tis obvious, isn’t it?”

  Her eyes widened. “No. You’re not a highwayman. Tell me you’re not….”

  “I am, tonight. And not a very good one, I’m afraid.”

  “And now you’re in my house!”

  “Have no fear, I’ve no intention of robbing you, madam. You have my word…as a gentleman.”

  She laughed; oh, this was absurd. Insane. Complete and utter madness. A highwayman in her house, giving her his word as a gentleman that he wouldn’t rob her? Fear and loathing and regret fought for space in her heart but it was too late now, wasn’t it? She could hardly throw him out on his ear.

  Wild-eyed, she looked about the hall, but it was empty. She was alone with this rogue, this criminal. Perry. She should run and get her brother….

  And what would he be able to do, soused like a pickle in vinegar?

  You’re on your own.

  Damnation! She guided him to a chair and bade him to sit while she tried to decide what to do. Grimacing in pain, he eased himself down, his drenched and muddy cloak, his wet breeches, surely ruining the velvet in which the chair was upholstered. It was an expensive piece that one of her ancestors had been given as a gift from a visiting prince, but the form it now held belonged in it no more than a cur off the streets. And yet there he sat, rain and melted snow dripping from his cloak onto the polished floor, his boots caked with mud, his head cradled in his hands as though he was trying not to pass out. She eyed the thick black hair that curled, wet and dripping from beneath his tricorn and noted it was in need of a cutting. In that moment he raised his head and again, she was struck by the sheer depth of humanity in eyes that were as deep and dark and bottomless as a quiet autumn pond.

  He took off his hat and held it in reddened fingers. “’Tis grateful to you, I am,” he said, and she was transfixed by the sheer perfection of his strong, manly face—the slightly crooked smile, the crinkling at the corners of those dark, soulful eyes, the strong white teeth and the shape of his eyebrows, not bushy and rough like a commoner’s but slightly winged, bold, and expressive. “Nollaig O’ Flaherty, your most humble servant…but you can call me Noel—”

  “Nollaig? What kind of a name is that?”

  “It means Christmas, in Gaelic.” He swayed in the chair. “Nobody calls me that, though. ’Tis Noel. Pleased to make your acquaintance and all that. Even more pleased to be out of the cold. God and the devil, but I’m dizzy. And you are?”

  “Lady Katharine Farnsley,” she said, eyeing him uncertainly. “And no, you cannot call me Katharine. I wish I could say that I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, but that would make me a liar. I wish I’d never let you in!”

  “Aye, well, I’m not exactly presentable now, am I?”

  “You are not. But you are here, you surely would have died had I left you outside as I was inclined to do, and I suppose that since it is Christmas, I’m now obliged to offer you something to eat as well as a bed near a warm fire, aren’t I?”

  His grin spread, and she felt her insides responding to its inherent roguishness. “Well now, ’tis awfully kind of you, milady. Can you keep my presence here a secret as well? I have no desire to be swinging at the end of a noose should the nob who put me in this very position, find me here.”

  “And who might that nob be, Mr. O’ Flaherty?”

  “One named Blackheath. A duke, I think, and it was his coach I held up.” At her snort of disbelief he added, “Why, d’ye know him?”

  “I do indeed.” It was on the tip of her tongue to confess to this man whose quiet, kind eyes penetrated her very soul that that same duke had cost her a potential husband, maybe two; that his actions had done such injury to her
brother’s head, heart and soul that she barely recognized him. He was no longer a friend of the family, was Lucien De Montforte. But she did not know this man with the odd name, and though his compelling eyes—she wondered if the Lord Jesus had had eyes like that, eyes that stripped a person’s soul bare, made every nasty thought in their head dissolve into a bucket of shame—made her want to tell him all the things that burdened and blackened her supposedly ice-cold heart, her breeding and many years of training, bade otherwise. “He’s our nearest neighbor,” she said instead.

  “I suppose he’s not likely to find me here.”

  “If the duke of Blackheath wishes to find you, I can assure you that he will.” She gazed unhappily down at him, wondering if she should try and find a footman to take him upstairs to the servants quarters, or if she should help him to the kitchens so he could warm himself by the fire, or if she should just leave him here in this chair and let the staff deal with him when they appeared come morning.

  Oh, why had she answered the knocking at the door? What was she going to do now?

  Get him upstairs and into a bed…. Let Perry see to him in the morning after he’s slept off the brandy.

  “So I guess, lass, you’d best hide me well, eh?”

  “I am debating whether I should throw you out on your ear.”

  “I’d rather a taste of fine English hospitality, I would.” He put out a hand, found the arm of the chair and pushed himself to his feet. Katharine’s upper lip curled slightly as she watched the melted snow dripping off his clothes and onto the marbled floor around his muddy boots. “Got a place for me to lay down my head, milady?”

  “You can sleep in the servants’ quarters,” she said tartly, “and in the morning we’ll decide what’s to be done with you.” She stiffened as he moved closer to her and wrapped his fingers around her arm for support. Lord, he was tall. Ignoring the little flutter that started somewhere between the pit of her stomach and the base of her spine, a strange reaction to his masculinity that surprised and appalled her, she retrieved the candle and led him toward the back stairs.

  He would sleep in a servant’s room tonight.

  He could start by going up the servants’ stairway.

  Chapter 3

  Oh, she was a cold one, this Lady Katharine.

  Noel clung to her arm as she led him to a closed door and from there, a narrow wooden staircase that ran up behind what he assumed were the “good” rooms and to the floor above. There was barely room for two in the stairwell, and he was forced to press close to her as they both climbed the stairs, boxed in by walls, their faces lit by the candle she so carefully held, their progress slowed by his own pain. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman and the look, scent and feel of this one—an icy, enigmatic blonde whose eyes, the color of a bruise, betrayed a world of hurt—did things to his breathing and the organ between his legs that rather surprised him.

  But why should it? Lady Katharine might be cold, but Noel suspected that beneath that frosty, distant exterior, there beat a passionate heart.

  No unfeeling soul would have come back to open the door and let an injured, disreputable bit of riff-raff into her very elegant house. But Lady Katharine had.

  His rib felt as though it had detached itself from his spine and was knifing a hole through his inner organs. Pain lanced his midsection at every step, his head hurt from thumping the frozen ground when the mare had gone over, and he felt nauseous and faint. But he’d be damned if he’d show weakness or give his beautiful savior even more cause to regret her actions. Instead he mustered his focus, his concentration and his strength, and put everything he had into climbing each torturous step.

  They neared the top of the stairs and the door there that awaited. Despite his pain, Noel could think of nothing but the woman beside him. Her affront that they were pressed together in the small space, her revulsion that he was leaning on her, the sound of their breathing mingling in the close dark as they climbed…he was aware of it all. He could also feel blood seeping through his shirt and wondered how badly he was hurt. No time to wonder, though; there was the door, and he all but clung to Lady Katharine, wondering how fast the fall back down the stairs would break his neck if he lost his battle to stay conscious.

  She pushed open the door, looked carefully in both directions, and then guided him to the right.

  A corridor with gilt side-tables and lacquered furniture, richly upholstered chairs and paintings of people from long past. A rug that was as plush as grass beneath his feet, though with his vision fading in and out Noel was hard pressed to note its color. Tall windows holding back the snowy night and reflecting the sconces on the wall, pinpoints of light in the cold black glass. A grand place, this…grander than even Dunmore House in distant Dublin where he’d expected to spend the rest of his life and from whence he’d been driven—

  “This way,” Lady Katharine snapped, and glancing down the hall, pushed open a door.

  Noel looked up. It was another stairway, this one even narrower, even steeper, than the last. He could barely draw breath now without knifing pain. His knees felt like water. The idea of climbing another flight of stairs made his head swim.

  “Come, let’s go!”

  He just looked at her, and she must have seen how pale he was and noted the pain in his eyes. If not, she was surely sensible to the increasing weight of his body as he leaned heavily against her in a sudden wave of dizziness. She opened her mouth as though to speak and then shut it, thinned her lips, and looked at him with a mixture of impatience and disgust.

  “Unless you want to drag me up there or find someone who can, I’m not making the climb,” he said simply, and leaning against the wall, began to let his legs fold beneath him. He could sleep here on the floor if he had to. The rug looked as deep and plush as the suds in a head of stout.

  “You cannot sleep here!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my brother will find you when he gets up in the morning. Because the servants will see you and then tongues will wag. Because…because—” She pressed her palms to the hollows of her cheekbones in a gesture of futility—“because you’ve obviously been injured, and you need to sleep in a proper bed.”

  The thing about breathing was that it hurt. The thing about not breathing was that the lack of air made him feel faint. He was in trouble either way.

  “Then I think, Lady Katharine, you’d better find me a proper bed.”

  He rested his head against the wall, closed his eyes and began to sag. From what seemed like a great distance away he heard her alarmed gasp, felt the sharp bite of her fingers into his arm and the next thing he knew, she was dragging him down the hall at a speed that made him stumble to keep up.

  She pushed open a door, and all but hauled him over the threshold. Through his pain, he saw walls of pale lemon. A bed dressed in striped blue, lemon and white silk, powder-blue pillows piled against a carved oak headboard, a thick rug beneath his feet and coals glowing red in a hearth. It was a beautiful room. A feminine room. And he knew with a certainty that didn’t even beg the question, that it was hers.

  He asked it anyhow. “Yours?”

  “Yes, my apartments.” She hurriedly closed the door and set the candlestick down. “I don’t know where else to put you.”

  Anchoring himself against her arm, he looked longingly at the bed. Exhaustion called to him. He was soaked, shivering and in pain, and cold to the bone…how he wanted just to crawl beneath those thick covers and get warm.

  Her bed.

  Oh, God help him, he wondered if he’d be able to sleep with what he suspected his mind and imagination were getting ready to throw at him….

  “You can stay here tonight, but you have to stay here, and not go anywhere else because if my brother or even a servant sees you, I shudder to think of what will happen.” She hurriedly let go of him. “Rest well, Mr. O’ Flaherty, but do know that you cannot stay long…indeed, I’m going to have to think of a way to get you out of here before a
nyone even knows you’re here.”

  “Won’t your lady’s maid—presuming, of course, that you have one—talk?”

  “Of course I have one. But she’s been dismissed for the night.”

  “Then I’ll be on my way in the morning, with none the wiser.”

  “Promise?”

  “Aye.” He felt suddenly weary, and the idea of leaving this place of refuge and more specifically, this beautiful, elegant woman who’d shown him such grudging charity, filled him with sorrow. “I promise.”

  “I’ll make sure you get a breakfast of sorts before I send you on your way.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been exceedingly kind, Lady Katharine.”

  “Hmph. Nobody has ever accused me of being kind, so please, spare me the flattery,” she said, but he saw that his comment had pleased her; she was blushing, though she quickly turned away to hide it. He eyed her quietly as he began to unbutton his wet, muddy coat. Underneath that odd, flippant comment he sensed a deep and underlying hurt, a hurt that defined her very existence, and he wondered what had put it there. Part of him wished he could stay and find out. Too bad he hadn’t suffered worse injuries. It would be nice to be stuck here in a long convalescence, nice to be able to get to know her better….

  He sobered. He could not stay, could not even court her, because he was no longer the man who’d been driven from Dunmore House. In fact, he’d only been Lord Dunmore for the space of three weeks before his world had come crashing down around him, and a woman like this…well, a woman like this was meant for a Lord Dunmore. A Lord Anyone. Not Noel O’ Flaherty, highwayman.

  She was moving back toward the door.

  “And where will you sleep?” he asked, his fingers pausing on the last button of his coat.

  She turned and shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight.”

  He peeled off the coat, catching his breath in agony as his arm moved just the right—or wrong—way, sending pain slicing across his torso. Behind a sudden dimming of his vision, he saw Lady Katharine frown. She might proudly declare herself unkind, or project an image that she was cold and unfeeling, but she hadn’t failed to notice his pain and was already hurrying back to him.